Potato Gnocchi with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

From time to time, I do have a batch of potato gnocchi ready in the freezer. There are other cases when I feel lazy and I just buy a packet of ready made potato gnocchi. I always try to vary the sauce that goes with them to make something different.

The following mushroom sauce incorporates goat cheese, which besides adding a whole lot of flavour, also adds a lot of creaminess to the dish. This eliminates the use of any cream in this dish. This sauce is also great to add to any pasta dish of your choice.

One of the key steps in this recipe is to lightly pan-fry the mushrooms prior to adding them to sauce. Besides absorbing some buttery flavour, this will allow all the water in the mushrooms to evaporate and does not end up in the sauce. The most important things here are:

do not overfill the pan – lay the mushroom slices one next to the other and do not pile on top of each other

do not season the mushrooms with any salt – this will make the mushrooms loose the water quickly and will end up boiling the mushrooms rather than pan-frying

do not agitate the mushrooms – just let the mushrooms sit in the pan for 2-3 minutes until they are golden on one side, then turn them over and let them sit until they have some colour on the other side as well

This is a healthy and easy recipe that can be prepared in a very short time, if you have the potato gnocchi ready (store-bought or otherwise). I suggest you give it a try tonight and let me know what you think! 🙂

Directions

Prepare a big pot of salted boiling water to cook the potato gnocchi.

In a large frying pan, heat the butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once the butter has melted, add the sliced mushrooms and let them sit for 2-3 minutes until they are golden brown on one side. Flip them over and cook on the other side for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

In the same pan, heat another tablespoon of olive oil and once hot add the onion. Cook until translucent, add the garlic, dried thyme and dried oregano and cook for a minute until fragrant.

Stir in the mushrooms and the goat cheese and cook for 2 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is nice and creamy.